Living with Diabetes

Blog

  • New Pump Arrived and in my possession

    UPS had tried to deliver while I was at school, so I made arrangements to pick it up from the local UPS center, about 5 miles from the house.

    They have an interesting system, they have everyone who is picking up packages come in the building and they start calling names — mine was the second name called that had a person, and about the 10th name called.

    The first thing I did was to pop a battery in the pump.  Man, the screen is extremely bright, but then again, I have it set on constrast 7 (I just thought of that), and it is much easier to read.

    The first disappointment came when I tried to upload my pump settings.  My current version of EzManager doesn’t work with the new pump for setup — though that makes sense because the set up screens are different.  Of course that just occured to me.

    I do wish I had a way to program the pump remotely — it took a good 20 minutes to program mys settings.

    I’m not sure if I can download anything until the new software comes — I tried, but it seemed to stop at 40%.  Anyone know when they are shipping?

    The package they sent is the standard, new pump package, with a sample of the comfort and inset infusion sets, IV prep and IV Barrier tape.  Also shipped with a cartridge. extra battery cap, leather case, and a new Animas medallion. 

    I really like the new programming options — you can now program your own times (with 30 minute increments) for ISF and for Corrections.  I’m trying something different — the time frames I usually eat, I’m using my Symlin settings so I don’t have to do as much math.  Right now, I eat lunch after 12:30 so from 12:30 to 1:00 I have it programmed to do a 20 ISF instead of a 10.  I’m also trying to find a way to enter the carbs without putting in a ISF for my evening timeframe, since I don’t need bolus insulin them.

    I’m still trying to figure out if entering Carbs in the evening but no insulin will let me log though carbs, and I might not know what until the new version of EzManager comes.

  • Finished Week 5

    Yesterday I finished my 5th week of working out with Fitness4Diabetics.

    Things are going well.  My TDD has gone from 80 units a day to just about 45 units a day.  I have increased my walking from 10 minutes straight to 20 minutes.  I think I’ve lost about 5 pounds.

    My average blood sugar accoding to my meter went from 171 to 148.

    All in all not bad.

    And I really didn’t expect to lose any weight.

  • New Pump

    My new Animas pump should be arriving tomorrow.  It’s the 2020.  It will be interesting — I hear that the EzManager software is behind the pump when it comes to current release.  It will be interesting to see what that means.

  • Very quick post

    Had an excellent day (my Fitness 4 Diabetes coach even says so….

    I got up, ran Marcie up to the vet for phenobarbal levels which are good.

    Then when over to school, sat down and made sub notes, and made sure I had everything for field testing on Tuesday and Wednesday.

    Picked up Diet Gourmet food and ran by Office Depot because I was out of ink and paper and it’s 10% off teacher appreciate week.

    Dropped that stuff off, went over to City Hall and voted in early voting.

    Got back to meet A/C people at 11:00.  They sent out a guy to start tearing stuff out at 11:00 and the actual unit came at 1:00 pm just as they said they would on Saturday.

    They were wonderful — though next time, I’ll go get the dog when the vet calls at 3:15.  They said we’d have cold air in an hour and figured that meant they would be done then.

    They got done at 5:15. Just enough time to get Marcie at the vets and get to agility class 45 minutes early, even though we stopped and hung out at Petsmart for a few minutes — FYI if you have to get your dog pills they make a dog food flavored thing you can hide the pills in.  It’s the one thing I’ve found that the beagles won’t eat while spitting out the pills.

    Even hit the hot tub.

    Man, it’s nice to sleep in a cool, dry (it’s been humid) house.

  • Diabetes on TV

    Interesting story line on NCIS last week — blind photographer follows “fruity smell” taking photographs and discovered a dead guy. 

    At the end of the show, the photographer smells it again — on Ducky’s assistant’s breath.  The killer was diabetic and was exhibiting the same fruity smell.

    Interestingly insulin, they had a Byetta pen, I believe instead of insulin.

  • Hot Sucks

    The house has not gotten cool enough for me to sleep well tonight.  I went to bed before 10:30, but kept waking up.  Finally got up for a while at 4:30, then went back to bed.

    Sure hope we do get the A/C in today, because I don’t see it getting done before Thursday otherwise.

  • OC Challenge Goals

    14-day average of between 150-155 mg/dl, with 6 tests a day and no more than 7 blood sugars over 250 mg/dl. I’m lowering your max number because you rarely if ever hit 300, and I think having a lower target might help keep your standard deviation down.

  • Fitness 4 Diabetes good news

    I think I’ve lost 5 pounds in the 5 weeks I’ve been working with them.  It’s hard for me to know for sure as my weight varies so much.

  • A/C News

    I had several people come out to the house, and I found someone who could replace the entire system for $4800.  I’m going to have someone cover my class from 12:00 pm on tomorrow and meet them at the house.  I want to make sure they do replace what I think I am paying for.

    I don’t trust my husband making sure of that.  We had problems before with workers when I made the arrangements and he let them in.

    I can’t wait.  Yesterday we didn’t get TOO hot, but I have trouble sleeping with the street noise.

  • Another weekend experiment

    I did 80 minutes today — about 20 minutes every time I ate something plus 20 minutes. It’s the most I’ve walked in a long time. I still do the Symlin, but that means no bolus insulin. Or at least very little. My blood sugar has stayed between 135 and 180 all day.

    I’m looking forward to my TDD going down some more — it did last week after last week’s experiment. Not a lot, but a nice steady pace. I’m definately at 50 units average TDD right now, and often see a TDD in the low 40s.

    I’m also doing lasix, though I don’t see the weight loss like I did before (though I’ll see tomorrow).

    Right now, I’m waiting for a guy to come and give me a second quote on A/C. I got one this morning which we can do, but I’m hoping this one is more doable and hoping he can get it done on Monday.

    Thankfully we’ve had slow rain and overcast all day so we can have the windows open though it is VERY noisy. And humid.